Floatinghead's ramblings about music and music-related themes interspersed with various interludes and home of Cabeza de Vaca radio show on Scanner FM, Barcelona.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Label special - Ambient, experimental and techno labels

A brief insight into some interesting small-to-medium-sized
labels that have caught the ear and eye lately.

Shimmering Moods (Netherlands)

Shimmering Moods is an excellent up and coming
ambient/experimental label from Amsterdam that differentiates itself from a lot
of other ambient labels by straying further away from simple drone-fests. Many
of their releases are characterised by experimentation that feels more playful than
intellectual and yet which doesn’t harm the seriousness of the music or dampen
the sense of tranquility and mystery that oozes from the core.

The label´s visual aesthetic matches their
sonic palette of drones, field recordings and somnambulic instrumentation perfectly
with cover imagery featuring real and imagined places in grey scale, abstracted
textures and carefully drafted diagrams. Most of their releases have come as
limited runs of 100 homemade CDs packaged in highly tactile and comforting recycled
cardboard or envelopes with printed photos which highlights the organic feel.
There have been a few sparse vinyl releases too and a couple of digital-only
releases on their Bandcamp page. Frustratingly, their web presence is a bit
mixed, with a big emphasis on Soundcloud and the excellent SHM Podcast series,
but their main webpage never seems to have been finished whereas Bandcamp only
sells some of their releases, with not many of the CDs available there, meaning
it can be a bit of work to hear samples and know what is really available and
where.

Prolific Japanese producer Hidekazu
Imashige from Hiroshima working as Gallery Six released one of the standout
albums earlier this year. “Gasansui” combines a sense of narrative, through the
use of water sounds that reflect beautifully the still cover images taken in
Japan, whereas the underpinning drones provide a mirror-like surface. However,
there is a lot more going on here than background ambience. There is a lot of
dynamic range with tracks seeking to pull you deep into the calm or push you
slowly towards the surface. The processing on the water sounds is also variable
between tracks integrating beautifully with the other sounds, particularly on the
adequately named closing track “Hakusui” (white water) where it has been accelerated
and thinned slightly so that it’s bubbling and dripping sounds integrate
perfectly with the slowly noodling synths. One sound seems to affect the other
such that by the end the water seems more electronic than the machine noises. “An
imaginary friend” works similarly, pairing muffled real time field recordings
from nature and someone moving about a room with hypnogogic chimes to create an
enhanced sense of lucid dreaming.

Best point of entry is probably the two
Mediations compilations that include a wide variety of tracks by what appears
to be their growing core roster of artists who are gathered from far and wide
and include Mexican artist ~~^^^macheteoxidado^^^~~, who has released the “Viento
de las Montañas” (Mountain wind) album and the two long digital tracks “Agua
Santa Limpia Me” inspired by the disappearance of 43 male students in Mexico
in 2014; Kyoto artist Michiru Aoyama who also released the “In a Dream” album
from early this year, and Light Sleeper, who’s recent “The Goodbye That Keeps
On Giving” album is one of the labels other highlights so far. Other noteworthy
artists making an appearance include Portland’s Sage Taylor, and Chris
Anderson’s EchoGrid. Mastering of most releases has so far been done by Early
Reflections (the duo of Oliver Charpier and Wilfried Decaesteker) who also contributes
a track.

Arboretum (Germany)

Arboretum is a collaborative sound and
visual project composed of visual artist Andrea Familari, sound designer Giuseppe
Bifulco (Drøp) and producer Marco Berardi who are all based in Berlin. The
project kicked off in 2012 and so far there are only three releases, two 12” EPs
and one CD album showcasing a diverse sound and a promising future. As the
labels name might suggest, there is a lot of botanical reference throughout the
releases from the track names to the artwork, with the “Unseed” album also
coming with some sakura (Japanese cherry blossom) seeds.

Drøp’s “Vasundhara” EP is a stark,
unfriendly and heavy IDM work closely aligned to the Stroboscopic Artefacts' Monad series or some of the album work of Lucy. It is perhaps no surprise then
that Dadub offers up a remix of the opening track. The overall pacing is slow
and the sounds oppressive despite the space often being sparse. But with violent
beats coming up from below and a rain of grainy noise and feedback descending
from above, there is nowhere to go whereas the is a sustained sense of menace
throughout that makes for a thrilling listen.

Marco Beradi’s “Sycamore” EP released under
the Mogano name was the label’s second release and is billed as a homage to the
Tree of Life and is perhaps more enigmatic than the debut. Opening track “Retama”
and “Anunnaki” both capture the sense of ancient civilization perfectly with grainy
textures, melancholy strings, guitar feedback and funerary and cavernous beats
closer to downtempo drum n bass than techno. Title track “Sycamore” is more
steely, cold and closer to current club sounds with its washes of dystopian
sound and fragmented and atomic high end and tribal pounding drums. The EP is
rounded off by a lovely remix from Kerridge whose aesthetic fits perfectly with
the EPs palette and mood.

Fabio Perletta’s “Unseed” album released
under the Øe moniker takes another turn, well away from the club, and more
towards traditional ambient music. The album features five long tracks that
gradually and gently unfold, with the idea taking inspiration from the Japanese
concept of Hanami which contemplates the transient beauty of nature. Opening
track “Winter, Awakening” is one of the highlights with a shimmering and
kinetic sense of quiet stillness built from bubbling electronics, echoing crystalline
tones and deep religious drones. “Uncertainty, Green” uses a similar approach,
but is slower and seems to separate out both the main sound elements before
bringing them back together with slowly plucked acoustic guitar. “Charm, Hanami”
has an almost shoegaze feel to the underlying bass pulse and its melting
textures like waves of slow guitar feedback. The album finishes off with the
lightest and stillest track, “Creation, Breath” which feels like the ice
thawing at the end of winter and the chance to start a new cycle again.

Kvitnu (Ukraine)

There is so much movement in the tape
underground that you sometimes get the feeling that CDs are somehow uncool.
Personally, I find the whole tape things utterly pathetic and just some hipster
cry for help and a deception that doesn’t really mark anyone or anything as
different or interesting. The reality for me is that tapes were/are mostly poor
audio quality, impractical (to play or rip to other formats) and of all the
audio media, the most easy to break and the most difficult to find decent audio
equipment. But the sad irony is that CDs may be uncool (or perhaps are just a
symbol of consumer capitalism?), but for several decades there has been a lot
of invention and imagination put into how they are presented. One label at the
forefront of exploiting the artistic potential of CDs, both graphically and
musically, has been Ukrainian label Kvitnu (although a Ukrainian label the
postal address is now in Vienna, Austria).

Founded in 2006 by Dmytro Fedorenko (a.k.a
Kotra) as an outlet for Ukrainian artists it has since gone on to have an
international roster and organise nights and festivals as well as release
experimental and abstract electronic music in the vein of Raster Noton and Sähkö.
Most of the artwork is done by Kateryna Zavoloka who also performs and releases
as Zavoloka on the label. The covers are usually beautiful mixed media designs incorporating
base material of different origins (cloth, card etc.) and are embellished in
different ways such as screen prints, embossing and with adorned other physical
materials. The results are highly varied and original.

Sound wise, the label is pretty diverse, releasing
anything from ambient works, to glitch electronica and more techno-orientated
pieces with a tendency towards a darker sound. The label currently has over 40
releases from the last decade, perhaps the most famous of which is Sturqen’s “Peste”
from 2010 which helped the label on to win three prestigious Qwartz Electronic
Music Awards that year. Sturqen is the Portuguese duo of David Arantes and
César Rodrigue and they have since gone on to release several albums for the
label as well as branching out recently to other labels.

Some of their recent releases include
Italian artist Matter (Fabrizio Matrone) who also works as Heidseck who just
released his seventh album “Paroxysmal” and third for the label in as many
years. Like the label, “Paroxysmal” is a diverse work, branching out from the
stunning metallic and brooding ambience of opener “Fluid” through various
chunky rhythmic industrial tracks via several outgrowths of dystopian noise
like the grating and gritty “Surge”, the abstract the unsettling “Amplitude”.
The closing sequence of tracks is both pummeling and with a touch of funk in “Ash”
which bookends the album. Hiss and bass at its best.

Mingle’s “Static” album is something
completely different. It is the work of another Italian, in this case Andrea
Gastaldello, who plays electronics and treated guitar and piano. The result is
a much more mediative and less abrasive ambient work, but still tinged with
dystopian sounds and beats, especially on tracks like “Conditions” and “Words”.
Whereas Matter favours bludgeoning and sparse percussion, Mingle often uses
fast runs of light glitch beats to provide the momentum or keeps the rhythmic
structures deep in the background. The emphasis is thus on flow rather than angular
kinetics. With a lot more instrumentation and slowness, there is more emotional
range and a sweeping feel to the album that is cinematic.

Other highlights include Isolat Pattern’s “Clinical
Ambience” which is a classic glitch album full of rugged force and detail. Pan Sonic’s album “Oksastus” which was recorded
at Kvitnu_live in Kiev in 2009 is one of the labels few forays into vinyl
releases. Just announced is an upcoming release by another Italian artist
Plaster (Gianclaudio Hashem Moniri) called "Mainframe" that will come out at the
end of October with a driving techno feel to several of the tracks.

Annulled Music (Norway)

Annulled Music is a relatively young label
from Norway focused on long tracks of dark and motoric techno and ambient in
the mould of Prologue, Semantica and Northern Electronics. In little over one
year the label has notched up five releases, but all of these have quickly
found the attention of many DJs including the likes of Cio d’Or, Takaaki Itoh
and Ness amongst others. So far the roster includes relatively unknown artists
which give it a freshness and a sense of risk that is another reason to keep
your eyes on it. The label highlight so far is Monochrome’s “Unforgettable call
of the octopus” which is as brilliant in name as it is in sound design. The EP
is poised somewhere between dub techno and experimental, not merely interested in
dancefloor functionality, but also textural grooves and sonic quality. Opener “Empty
into dampness” and “Senses” are both searching tracks that refuse to lock into
a simple groove, but instead work intricate circles around a central and
irregular kick drum. “Misme’s breath” is chugging and ambient, mixing murky
radio voices with thick, inky squirts of percussion. “Uton” is the dancefloor
number with a propelling momentum and a spooky, ethereal tinge. The EP closes
with “Silent Bodies”, a watery number that is the most experimental of the set,
with the weight of the sea bogging down all momentum and sending the lower end
to Davey Jones’ locker amid a blur of voices and seaside sounds.

The first release was BLNDRs “Hypermental”
EP which captures the current range of the label, with dubby tracks like “Chords
Dark” and “Behind the Log Cabin” as well as Prologue-esque “Hypermental (Diving
Mix)”. The highlight from Elle’s more dance floor-orientated EP “Yamaja” is the
slowly building “Alatangana”. Von Grall with releases on Semantica and Planet
Rhythm is also responsible for one of the purest club releases of the label so
far with the standout track being “Falling Bodies” which has plenty of ambience
and hypnotic momentum to keep the late hours moving.

The labels most recent release is also
their first full length (digital only) by Hydrangea, interspersing ambient
tracks with club tracks. The emphasis is on ambience rather than peak time,
with a dark and deep lost feel pervading the album that might favour the more
introverted clubber. Highlight tracks include the brooding “Hope”, the
psychedelic echo chamber techno of “First”. Although the label and the album’s
aesthetic is all moody and greyscale, they are not all monochrome (sic) and
depressing. The middle of the album finds respite in “The Sea Breathe” which is
a welcome shade of simpler sadness touched by a ray of light whereas towards
the end “5 o´clock” is almost a lullaby to signal the end of the nightmare. The
following Bvdub-esque track “Winter sleep” confirms this as it reaches its
branches towards the sun.

White Paddy Mountain (Japan)

Chihei Hatakeyama seems to be arriving at a
peak moment in his career. The prolific ambient artist started playing in rock
bands, but has since migrated to electronic music, playing mostly laptop and
field recordings and having his debut on Kranky back in 2006. Nonetheless his previous
experience is critical to his current sound which often feels closer to
shoegaze than to ambient with clearly audible guitars and other instruments in
many of his works. As well as his solo output, Hatakeyama is also one half of the
electroacoustic duo Opitope along with Tomoyoshi Date and has released plenty
of collaborative albums including the recent “Frozen Silence” with Sakana
Sosomi, “It is, it isn’t” with Japanese ambient artist Hakobune and “Magical
Imaginary Child” with Argentine Federico Durand who has also put out solo releases
on White Paddy Mountain.

White Paddy Mountain debuted in 2010 with
the first of Hatakeyama’s ongoing “Void” series, now up to number VII, but it
is really in the last two years that it has taken off, releasing a large number
of CDRs and digital releases not only by Hatakeyama, but by a growing roster of
international artists including Celer, Aaron Martin and Jeremy Young, which is
testament to its rising potential. Some of the labels recent highlights include
Hatakeyama’s solo album “Mist” which is incredibly gentle and reaffirming, the
more instrumental “Frozen silence” collaboration, “It is, it isn’t” studio live
album which sounds like an ambient take on slow-core rock, and “Bullshead
Emperor” that has a distinctly religious almost Popl Vuh feel.

As well as releases on White Paddy
Mountain, Hatakeyama has also seen recent albums come out on Room 40 (“Moon Light
Reflecting Over Mountains”), who have previously released several other albums
of his, and Glacial Movements (“The Storm of Silence” with Belgian Dirk Serries
to be released in January 2016).